How to start a cleaning business in Ontario: 2026 guide

What are the steps to open a cleaning company in Ontario?

To open a residential cleaning company in Ontario, you pick a structure, register a business name if you use one, get insured, decide when to register for HST, and set prices that cover Ontario wages and tax. Add WSIB and a CRA payroll account when you hire. Most people starting a cleaning business in Ontario can do the paperwork online in a day or two.

This guide covers what is specific to Ontario and Canada: provincial registration, the CRA, HST, WSIB, the Employment Standards Act and local licences. For the parts that work the same everywhere (choosing services, buying supplies, your first cleans), read our general guide on how to start a cleaning business. Its costs and rules are American, so use this page for the Ontario numbers.

Here is the order that saves you from redoing anything later:

1. Choose your services and the towns or postal codes you will serve.
2. Pick a name and a structure, and register the name with the Ontario Business Registry if it isn’t your own name.
3. Get a CRA business number and decide whether to register for HST now or later.
4. Check your city’s rules for zoning, signs and any business licence.
5. Buy commercial general liability insurance, and tell your auto insurer you drive to jobs.
6. Set prices from your costs, with HST added on top if you are registered.
7. Set up booking, reminders and payments, then go find clients.
8. When you hire, register with WSIB and open a CRA payroll account.

If you are still choosing a name, the cleaning business name generator gives you options to check against the Ontario registry. If you want to see your numbers before you commit, the cleaning business plan template turns your startup costs and prices into a 12-month forecast.

Step 1: choose a structure and register your business name in Ontario

Most solo cleaners start as a sole proprietorship. You only have to register it if you use a business name other than your own, and registration costs $60 online for five years. Incorporating costs $300 in Ontario or $200 federally, online.

Sole proprietorship

The Ontario government’s guide to choosing an ownership structure says you need to register your sole proprietorship if you are not using your own name as your business name. So “Maria Silva” needs no registration, but “Maria’s Sparkle Cleaning” does. The trade-off is liability: as a sole proprietor you are responsible for all debts and losses, and creditors can go after your personal assets.

General partnership

Two or more owners can register a general partnership. The fee is the same $60, and all partners are responsible for all debts and losses. Write down who owns what, who decides prices and what happens if one of you leaves before you sign up your first client.

Corporation: Ontario or federal

A corporation gives you limited liability, but it costs more to set up and needs annual filings and corporate records. You can incorporate provincially or federally:

• Ontario corporation: articles of incorporation cost $300 online, and the annual return is $0, according to Ontario’s registration fee schedule.
• Federal corporation: $200 online through Corporations Canada. A federal corporation that does business in Ontario also files an initial return for an extra-provincial corporation through the Ontario Business Registry.

For a one-person cleaning business, the extra cost and paperwork of a corporation rarely pays off in year one. Insurance, not incorporation, is what pays a client when you break something. Ask an accountant if you expect high profits early or plan to bring in partners.

How business name registration works

You register through the Ontario Business Registry online and pay by card. A business name registration (once called a Master Business Licence) expires every five years. You can renew from six months before the expiry date until 60 days after it, for the same $60. Let it lapse longer than that and you have to register again with a new business identification number.

Step 2: get a CRA business number and decide on HST

You need a CRA business number (BN) once you register for HST or payroll, or when you incorporate. You must register for HST when your taxable sales pass $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Until then you are a small supplier and can choose to register voluntarily. Ontario’s HST rate is 13%.

Your business number

The CRA’s page on when you need a BN lists Ontario among the provinces where you receive a BN when you register or incorporate with the province. An unincorporated cleaner who never registers a name needs a BN only when they open a CRA program account, such as GST/HST or payroll.

When you must register for HST

The CRA’s rules on when to register for and charge GST/HST work like this:

• Under $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters: you are a small supplier. You don’t have to register, but you can.
• Over $30,000 across several quarters: you stop being a small supplier at the end of the month after the quarter in which you passed $30,000.
• Over $30,000 in a single quarter: you must charge HST starting with the sale that took you over.

Once registered, voluntarily or not, you charge HST on your taxable services from your effective date of registration. The CRA’s rate table shows Ontario at 13% HST, a rate in place since April 1, 2013.

Should you register before you reach $30,000?

Registering early lets you claim back the HST you pay on supplies, equipment and your vehicle costs. The downside is that your prices go up 13% for homeowners, who can’t claim it back. Many solo cleaners serving homes wait until they get close to the threshold. Commercial clients usually don’t mind HST, because registered businesses can claim it. Track your sales every quarter so you know when you are getting close.

The Quick Method

Once registered, small businesses can use the Quick Method of accounting if their annual worldwide taxable sales, including tax, are not more than $400,000. You still charge clients 13%, but you send the CRA a set percentage of your HST-included sales instead of tracking the tax on every purchase. You get a 1% credit on the first $30,000 of eligible sales each year, and you can still claim the HST on capital purchases such as a vehicle or computer. It suits service businesses with low supply costs, which describes most house cleaners. Ask your accountant to run both methods on your numbers.

Do you need a licence to clean houses in Ontario?

Usually not. We found no licence for house cleaning on the official pages we checked, and the two big cities we checked, Toronto and Mississauga, don’t list one. You still need a registered business name if you use one, and you need to follow local zoning and sign rules.

Toronto

Toronto’s business regulations table has a row for “Cleaning / Exterior Building Cleaning / Janitorial”. The municipal requirements it lists are zoning, sign permits and business registration. At the provincial level it lists WHMIS training if applicable, and at the federal level Environment and Climate Change Canada permits if applicable. It does not list a business licence from Municipal Licensing and Standards, and the city’s list of licence types has no category for cleaning or domestic services.

In practice, a Toronto house cleaner needs the name registration (if not using their own name), a home base that zoning allows, and a sign permit only if they put up a sign. WHMIS training matters once you have workers handling hazardous products.

Mississauga, Ottawa and other cities

Mississauga’s business licensing page lists categories such as personal services, trades, food vendors, second-hand goods and transportation. Cleaning is not on it. We could not confirm Ottawa’s or other cities’ lists, so check your own municipality’s licensing page or call its licensing office. Cities that license businesses publish the list of types they license, so look for cleaning or janitorial on it.

The general version of this question for US readers is in our guide to what licenses are needed to start a cleaning business, which explains why “licensed, bonded and insured” usually means registrations plus insurance, not a cleaning credential.

What insurance does an Ontario cleaner need?

Start with commercial general liability (CGL), which pays when your work injures someone or damages a client’s property. Add a bond or crime coverage once you have staff in clients’ homes, and make sure your auto insurer knows you drive to jobs. Many clients and property managers ask for proof of coverage before your first visit.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada’s overview of types of business coverage lists commercial general liability and crime coverage among the common policies for small businesses. It also notes that auto insurance is mandatory across Canada, and that vehicles your business uses can get commercial vehicle coverage on top of the mandatory coverage.

• Commercial general liability: the core policy. Ask whether it excludes damage to items in your “care, custody or control”, which is exactly what you handle while cleaning.
• Bond or employee dishonesty (crime) coverage: pays a client back if an employee steals. It matters more once you send cleaners into homes without you.
• Auto: tell your insurer you drive to clients’ homes with supplies. A personal policy may not cover business use, and the time to find out is before a claim.
• Your home policy: if you store supplies or meet staff at home, ask whether your home insurance covers business use.

We did not find a public, verifiable source for typical Ontario premiums, so we don’t quote a price here. To get real numbers, ask two or three brokers for quotes with the same details: your services (residential, move-out, short-term rental turnovers), expected yearly revenue, number of cleaners, and whether you drive. Compare the limit, deductible and exclusions, not only the price, and check you can get a certificate of insurance quickly when a client asks.

Our guide to cleaning business insurance explains each policy in more depth. Its prices are American, so use it for the coverage, not the costs.

Hiring in Ontario: WSIB, minimum wage, CPP and EI

When you hire your first cleaner, register with WSIB within 10 calendar days, pay at least Ontario’s minimum wage of $17.95 an hour, and open a CRA payroll account before your first remittance is due. You deduct CPP, EI and income tax from each paycheque and add the employer share.

WSIB

WSIB’s page on whether you need to register says most Ontario businesses that have employees, including family members and sub-contractors, must register, and that you have 10 calendar days from the day you hire your first employee. Cleaning is not on WSIB’s list of optional industries (such as banks, travel agencies and many hair salons), so plan to register. WSIB’s online questions confirm it for your business activity, and registering is free. You then pay premiums based on your payroll and industry class.

Owners are a separate question. Sole proprietors, partners and independent operators can apply for optional WSIB insurance for themselves, as long as their employees are covered. If you work alone, ask WSIB whether you can get optional coverage, or price private disability insurance instead.

Minimum wage and the Employment Standards Act

Ontario’s general minimum wage is $17.95 an hour from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027, up from $17.60. It rises each October 1 with the Ontario Consumer Price Index. It applies whether you pay by the hour, by the job (a flat rate per clean) or by piece rate, and compliance is checked over each pay period. If you pay $60 per home, the hours worked in that pay period still have to add up to at least $17.95 each.

Employees also earn vacation: at least two weeks a year with vacation pay of at least 4% of gross wages, rising to three weeks and 6% after five years.

CRA payroll: CPP and EI

You have to register for a payroll account before your first remittance due date, which is normally the 15th of the month after you start withholding. For 2026:

• CPP: 5.95% from the employee and 5.95% from you, on earnings between the $3,500 basic exemption and $74,600 (CRA CPP rates).
• EI: $1.63 per $100 of insurable earnings from the employee, and 1.4 times that (about $2.28) from you, up to $68,900 of insurable earnings (CRA EI rates).

Employee or contractor?

Paying cleaners as contractors doesn’t make them contractors. The CRA’s guide Employee or self-employed? (RC4110) looks at control over how the work is done, who owns the tools and equipment, whether the worker can hire helpers or substitutes, financial risk, investment and the chance of profit or loss. A cleaner who works your schedule, with your supplies, on your checklist, for your clients, looks like an employee. If you are unsure, you can ask the CRA for a CPP/EI ruling through My Business Account or with form CPT1.

How should you set prices around Ontario wages and HST?

Work out what an hour of a cleaner’s time really costs you, then price each job from the hours it takes plus supplies, overhead and profit. At Ontario’s minimum wage, an employee’s hour costs about $20.20 before WSIB, so any price that doesn’t cover that comfortably is losing money.

The pay floor, worked out

Here is the math for one hour at the $17.95 minimum wage, using the 2026 rates above:

So a three-hour clean costs at least 3 × $20.20 = $60.60 in wages and payroll costs before WSIB premiums, supplies, driving, insurance, software or your own profit. The CPP basic exemption trims this slightly over a year, and WSIB adds to it. Treat $20.20 as the floor, not the target: many owners pay above minimum wage to keep good cleaners.

Adding HST to a price

If you are registered, HST goes on top of your price. A $150 clean is $150 × 13% = $19.50 of HST, so the client pays $169.50. Say clearly on your website and quotes whether prices include tax. If you are a small supplier and not registered, you don’t charge HST at all.

Building the price list

The house cleaning pricing guide compares hourly, flat and per-room pricing and shows how to build each one from your costs. The house cleaning price calculator does the math for each home size. Enter your Ontario hourly cost (at least $20.20 for an employee, more for yourself), and it gives you a flat price list you can publish.

How do you find clients in Ontario, in English and French?

Start with people you know and a free Google Business Profile, then add a booking link so strangers can book you without a phone call. If you serve French-speaking clients, for example in Ottawa or Eastern Ontario, offer booking and messages in French as well as English.

The full playbook for referrals, local partners, flyers and reviews is in how to get clients for a cleaning business. For showing up on Google Maps and search in your town, read cleaning company SEO. Use Canadian spelling and postal codes on your site and profile, and list the towns you actually serve.

Running it with BroomBook

We make BroomBook, a scheduling, online booking and crew app for residential cleaning businesses, so here is how it fits an Ontario business, including what it doesn’t do:

• Canadian dollars. Canadian businesses charge clients in CAD through Stripe, by card on file after each clean, or mark cash, cheque or e-transfer at checkout. BroomBook takes no cut of payments.
• HST preset. Sales tax is off until you turn it on, so small suppliers don’t charge it by mistake. Pick Ontario and it fills in 13% HST, shown on receipts.
• English or French booking pages. Clients get an instant price from bedrooms, bathrooms, type of clean and extras, and pick an open time. You can limit your service area by distance or postal codes.
• Your crew in their language. Job notes can be translated into Spanish, French or Portuguese for each cleaner, and each cleaner gets a private link with their jobs, checklists and clock in and out, with no app download.
• Payroll export. Hours from clock-ins, tips split across the crew and commission go into a CSV for your payroll service. BroomBook does not calculate CPP, EI or income tax deductions.

BroomBook costs $29 a month on Solo (up to 2 cleaners) or $59 a month on Team (unlimited cleaners), billed in US dollars, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. See how scheduling works on our cleaning scheduling software page.

Pick something other than BroomBook if

• You need jobs and payments to sync into QuickBooks automatically. BroomBook doesn’t sync with accounting software.
• You bill clients by invoice with net terms. BroomBook charges cards after the job and sends receipts, not invoices.
• You want a native app from the App Store or Google Play. BroomBook runs in the phone’s browser.
• You mainly bid on commercial janitorial contracts, or run a multi-trade field service company.

What does it cost to start in Ontario?

A solo cleaner in Ontario can start for the $60 name registration (or nothing, under your own name), plus insurance and supplies. Government fees only grow if you incorporate. Insurance is the biggest unknown, so get quotes before you set your prices.

Government fees below were checked on official pages on October 5, 2026. Rows marked “estimate” are our own rough ranges, not quotes, so replace them with your real numbers.

A realistic minimum for a solo sole proprietor using a business name: $60 for registration, roughly $200 to $500 for supplies (our estimate), and your first insurance payment. Everything else can wait until clients are paying you.